So whose sense of job security will be bolstered by these taxpayer-financed bonuses?

The proposed bonus recipients include nine equipment engineers, six general business and finance employees and up to two information technology workers.

The biggest bonus, for $50,000, would go to a Solyndra employee whose job title is listed as a senior director with a base salary of $206,499 per year. Two senior managers stand to receive bonuses of $30,000 and $32,500. [From the Washington Times.- Ed.]

Taxpayers were stiffed for a good $300 million of the money they poured into Solyndra, because late-arriving private investors – lured with promises of “senior debt” by an Administration desperate to keep this boondoggle from becoming a political nightmare – got repaid first. Now you’re going to get stiffed again so an employee in a useless company who makes over $200,000 a year can get his $50,000 bonus. Only three of the employees set to receive these bonuses make less than six figures.

Um, in this crappy economy, a regular paycheck is sufficient to keep most of us working diligently. So what if they leave? Are we going to throw good money after bad because a total debacle might turn into a cataclysm? I’ll take my chances.

On second thought, how ’bout we fire Steven Chu, and divide his paycheck up among the remaining Solyndra stalwarts. This mess has his fingerprints all over it.

Congress, in its brilliance, mandated quotas for the use of cellulosic ethanol, which is made from stuff like corn cobs, switchgrass and wood chips. Theoretically. What’s the use of a quota without a penalty for not meeting it?

In one fell swoop, Congress can feel good about their support of Green Energy and increase Federal revenues without raising taxes!

WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.

But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.

In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year. …

But Cathy Milbourn, an E.P.A. spokeswoman, said that her agency still believed that the 8.65-million-gallon quota for cellulosic ethanol for 2012 was “reasonably attainable.” By setting a quota, she added, “we avoid a situation where real cellulosic biofuel production exceeds the mandated volume,” which would weaken demand.

Wait. What?!

And Mascoma, a company partly owned by General Motors [a company 30% owned by the U.S. Government – Ed.], announced last month that it would get up to $80 million from the Energy Department to help build a plant in Kinross, Mich., that is supposed to make fuel alcohol from wood waste. Valero Energy, the oil company, and the State of Michigan are also providing funds.

With apologies to Mel Brooks, even he could not have concocted such wacky schemes. These policies are straight out of Alice in Wonderland.

2 Responses to The Non-Producers

Then there is POET’s “Project Liberty” which has received $100 million. POET is the largest ethanol plant operator. It would be good to know that the vast majority of dry milling ethanol plants are each majority owned by local farmers (and thus receive state subsidies from 20 to 30 cents per gallon).